Professor Ion Smedescu’s extraordinary leadership was the essential ingredient behind the Romanian-American (RAU) success story. Recognized as an early innovator, the strong leader ION SMEDESCU proved the experience, the ability, the right mindset to build an extraordinary academic fortress, a talent development organization, creating strong linkages between RAU overall goals and the capabilities of the RAU academic family members charged with achieving them.
Always having a healthy dose of inspiration Professor ION SMEDESCU knew how and when to retain top talent, developing adequate pathways (both providing opportunities for growth in a teaching role, and developing strong RAU leaders), ensuring training, restructuring roles, and creating consensus around managing change. He always linked explicitly expectations to goals, designed the proper roles for future needs, cultivated leaders through apprenticeship, and involved stakeholders in building desire for change in accordance with his fundamental sense of noble mission and urgency.
Thinking in multiple time frames, anticipating and reacting to discontinuities, and enhancing capabilities while looking ahead, constantly challenging priorities and inspiring the entire RAU academic family, empathizing with students, identifying and developing talent, learning to adapt and effectively address changes in the relevant market demand or competition, actively seeking to understand broader trends outside RAU, reflecting RAU values and principles in the key managerial processes, stimulating innovation and preventing generational barriers by engaging younger generations in formulating RAU policy and organizational development, managing to create RAU value and enduring through time with patience, and moving on, RAU Founding Rector ION SMEDESCU always knew how to guide RAU academic family, giving shared ambition and purpose, determining a real commitment to the necessary cultural transformation to keep RAU dream alive and well, never forgetting what makes RAU unique.
We are honored to recall the words of the RAU Founder, Professor ION SMEDESCU: “For me, the Romanian-American University is everything: my home, my profession and my spare time. This establishment of education and science is a mirror of me and of my work for tens of years, my eternal soul, and my idea for the renewal of the concept of work.”
Allow us to remember that Professor ION SMEDESCU chose the same day as Rev. Prof. Dr. DUMITRU STĂNILOAE, the 5th of October (1993, namely 2008), to step on the path of eternity. Former student of the „Christian love Theologian” – Father STĂNILOAE, Professor ION SMEDESCU often mentioned Father STĂNILOAE, speaking of the mysterious beauty of a wonderful landscape and the necessity of the conscious sense of the ordinance, of the beauty, in order to perform a task the right way, in joyful communion.
